Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping!
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Posted on 02/27/2006 2:46:42 PM PST by dukeman
America has been embroiled in a seemingly endless debate over the issue of abortion for four decades now, but the most fascinating dispute on this issue may now be among those who consider themselves, in one way or another, advocates of abortion rights.
An unprecedented view into this debate is available on the pages of Slate.com--a prominent Web site that features some of the liveliest reporting available anywhere today. Nevertheless, this exchange between writers William Saletan and Katha Pollitt did not begin on the Internet, but in the pages of The New York Times and The Nation.
Saletan fired the first salvo, suggesting in an op/ed commentary published in The New York Times that pro-choicers should admit that abortion is "bad" and that those who support abortion rights should work toward a truly dramatic reduction in the total number of abortions.
Saletan's argument is not exactly new, either for himself or for the movement he supports. In his 2004 book, Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War, Saletan offered some of the most incisive and perceptive analysis of the national abortion debate. In essence, Saletan argued that America has settled on a fragile consensus he described as "conservative pro-choice." Americans are quite squeamish about abortion itself, but have resisted efforts to eliminate access to abortion altogether.
Even those who disagree with Saletan must take his argument seriously. Those of us who yearn to see America affirm the sanctity of all human life, born and preborn, must acknowledge that we have much work to do in terms of changing public opinion--the task of reaching the hearts and minds of millions of individual citizens.
That process of reaching hearts and minds is Saletan's concern as well, even as he is a strong defender of abortion rights. As he sees it, support for abortion rights is diminishing as the pro-life movement has been largely successful in focusing upon the moral status of the fetus and the objectionable--even horrible--nature of abortion itself.
Writing on the thirty-third anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Saletan boldly argued: "It's time for the abortion-rights movement to declare war on abortion."
That was a rather amazing statement, and Saletan clearly intended to catch the attention of abortion-rights advocates.
"If you support abortion rights, this idea may strike you as nuts," Saletan acknowledged. "But look at your predicament. Most Americans support Roe and think women, not the government, should make abortion decisions. Yet they've entrusted Congress and the White House to politicians who oppose legal abortion, and they haven't stopped the confirmations to the Supreme Court of John G. Roberts Jr. and . . . Samuel A. Alito Jr."
In terms of political analysis, Saletan reminded his pro-choice readers that abortion may have been a "winning issue" for their side sixteen years ago, but no more. "You have a problem," he advised.
His candid analysis was offered so that the pro-abortion movement might awaken from its slumber. "The problem is abortion," he summarized. In order to make his point, he raised the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act--both passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed into law by President Bush--and reminded: "And most Americans supported both bills, because they agree with your opponents about the simplest thing: It's bad to kill a fetus."
Significantly, Saletan then offered his own moral analysis. "They're right. It is bad," he confirmed. "This is why the issue hasn't gone away. Abortion, like race-conscious hiring, generates moral friction. Most people will tolerate it as a lesser evil or a temporary measure, but they'll never fully accept it. They want a world in which it's less necessary. If you grow complacent or try to institutionalize it, they'll run out of patience. That's what happened to affirmative action. And it'll happen to abortion, if you stay hunkered down behind Roe."
Instead, Saletan argued that the pro-abortion movement should coalesce around an agenda of lowering the total number of abortions and increasing the use of contraceptives.
All this was just too much for Katha Pollitt, a fire-brand liberal who serves as a regular columnist for The Nation, one of America's most influential journals of liberal opinion.
Pollitt was shocked--absolutely shocked--that Saletan was ready to speak of abortion in moral terms. This is a move she emphatically rejects. "Inevitably, attacking abortion as a great evil means attacking providers and patients. If abortion is so bad, why not stigmatize the doctors who perform them? Deny the clinic a permit in your town? Make women feel guilty and ashamed for choosing it and make them sweat so they won't screw up again?"
Furthermore, she warned that abortion might soon "join obesity and smoking as unacceptable behavior in polite society."
Taken by itself, this is a truly amazing comment. At the very least, it suggests that, in Katha Pollit's social circle, obesity and smoking are taken as genuine moral issues, when abortion--the killing of an unborn human--is not.
But there's more. Consider this statement: "The trouble with thinking in terms of zero abortions is that you make abortion so hateful you do the antichoicers' work for them. You accept that the zygote/embryo/fetus has some kind of claim to be born." Did you get that? Any honest reading of her words would lead to the inevitable conclusion that Pollitt believes that the unborn human has no "claim to be born."
Pollitt was responding directly to Saletan's op/ed in The New York Times. In her view, Saletan was simply giving away the store by admitting that abortion was indeed a serious moral issue and that it is a "bad" reality in and of itself.
From their initial exchange in the Times and The Nation, Saletan and Pollitt continued their debate at Slate.com. Their exchange took the form of lengthy letters addressed to each other, with Saletan first clarifying what he really intended to say as he argued about abortion in moral terms. "I'm no fan of the language of sin," he clarified. "But I don't see why we have to shrink from words like good and bad. It's bad to cause a pregnancy in a situation where you're going to end up having an abortion. It's bad to cause a pregnancy in a situation where you can't be a good mom or dad. Our high rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion are a collective moral problem. If we don't want the government to tell us what to do, we'd better address the problem individually."
Beyond this, Saletan also told Pollitt that his purpose was not to create a movement that would combine pro-choicers with the pro-life. Instead, "I'm trying to form a coalition with the public," he suggested.
Saletan is an ardent supporter of abortion rights, but he positions himself in something of a centrist position--at least his position looks somewhat centrist with Katha Pollitt as background. He is concerned that when Pollitt dismisses any claim to life on the part of the fetus, she confuses the fetus with the zygote, "alienating people who see the difference and might support us if they realize we care about it." This is an interesting move, and a move I believe to be destined to fail.
Why? Because Saletan's effort to suggest that the fetus might have some claim to life while the zygote evidently does not, is based in no clear or compelling scientific definition of life. The human continuum begins with the union of the sperm and the egg and continues throughout gestation and life until natural death. At no point along this continuum does the life suddenly "become" human. Such arguments are based upon convenient abstractions or arbitrarily chosen capacities or characteristics. Pollitt's position is truly abhorrent and radical, but it is at least consistent.
Responding to Saletan, Pollitt accuses him of offering no real rationale for why abortion should be seen as "so outrageous, so terribly morally offensive, so wrong." She is willing to speak of abortion as a "difficult" decision, but that is about all. She explains that opposition to abortion is really an extension of an effort to deny sexual freedom to women, and to stigmatize sex outside of marriage. She identifies this with what she sees as the nation's "already broad, deep strain of sexual Puritanism, shame and blame."
Responding to Pollitt, Saletan clarified his position: "This is why I use the word 'bad.' It upsets many people on the left, but for the same reason, it wakes up people in the middle. It's new, and in my opinion, it's true. (I don't use the word 'wrong,' because to me that implies a prohibitive conclusion. 'Bad' is a consideration. Abortion can be a less-bad option than continuing a pregnancy. In that case, it's bad but not wrong.)"
Pollitt remained unmoved. "Morality has to do with rights and duties and obligations between people," she insisted. "So, no: I do not think terminating a pregnancy is wrong. A potential person is not a person, any more than an acorn is an oak tree. I don't think women should have to give birth just because a sperm met an egg. I think women have the right to consult their own wishes, needs, and capacities and produce only loved, wanted children they can care for--or even no children at all. I think we would all be better off as a society if we respected women's ability to make these decisions for themselves and concentrated on caring well for the born. There is certainly enough work there to keep us all very busy."
In the end, Saletan appeared to have retreated somewhat from his argument about the moral status of abortion, but the very fact that he addressed the issue so clearly and candidly is telling in itself. As for Pollitt, she was eventually willing to admit that abortion is "icky." As she explained this term: "I think that expresses rather well how lots of people feel about abortion: They may not find it immoral or want to see it made illegal, but it disturbs them. It just seems like a bad thing."
Why should pro-lifers pay attention to this debate among advocates of abortion rights? The answer to that question is simple--the exchange between William Saletan and Katha Pollitt demonstrates the inherent weakness of the pro-abortion argument, or its pro-choice variant. Lacking any objective definition of human life and the status of the unborn, the pro-abortion movement is mired in a pattern of endless internal debates and confusions. Saletan's argument is less radical than Pollitt's, but his position is morally arbitrary, based more in pragmatic concern than in moral philosophy.
In any event, the exchange between William Saletan and Katha Pollitt indicates that the pro-abortion movement knows that it has work to do in reaching the hearts and minds of Americans. The pro-life movement had better remind itself of the same challenge. Both sides are locked in a race to reach the hearts and minds of those still stuck in the middle.
Further, they are also identical from an objective empathic standpoint as well. Whether you actively or passively kill that one person, you are deciding that they will die and they die. From the perspective of the victim, they are just as dead whether you kill them passively or actively.
But what you miss is that the majority of people, with predictable regularlity, will opt to pull the switch and passively kill one person but won't push the person to their death, even if it simply takes a slight shove that's no problem at all. From a purely utilitarian or purely empathic standpoint, they should make the exact same decision regardless of the details. But they don't. And they don't because their empathy is different in each case.
I should also point out the additional line of research that is showing that in the face of feelings that they are being dealt with unfairly, people will choose a course of action that hurts the party they feel victimized, even when that course of action hurts them, too. That's neither utilitarian nor empathic but is yet another emotional component lurking in the anterior insula -- a sense of fairness and justice.
Now I've read it, good article. Of course I'd side with Saletan, if I had to chose between the two. But I notice that both do not address (or do not seem to address, I realize this article is a recap of several pieces) any harm (moral, emotional, physical or otherwise) that happens to the women who have abortions. Arbortions really have two victims.
Empathy like all other emotions can be regulated by reason, suppressed by reason, and ultimately and arduously enhanced by reason. It is clearly not binary, although the brain measurements may or may not be capturing it in a binary sense. The degree for which one feels empathy for a victim is simply the degree to which empathy has been cultivated.
Empathy is often passed from one generation to the next by example. I believe it also exists tabula rasa in humans and perhaps some other mammals. But primarily empathy, like all emotions is enhanced or suppressed by reason. A strong religious belief for example will result over time in a strong sense of empathy even in those who lacked it before. Pure utilitarian reasoning on the other hand, is unlikely to produce any empathy and may degrade it over time.
And why do you believe that?
What is "properly defined empathy"? Who gets to decide what's "proper"?
Although I understand your point and I am a staunch pro-lifer, your logic is in error.
First: The constitution gives us no rights. Our rights exist before and above the constitution. If it disappeared today, you will still have rights endowed by the Creator.
Second: A right need not be absolute. You do not have an absolute right to free speech or press; slander, libel, and child porn are not protected speech or press. Your right to peacefully assemble does not include a rally on the I-10/610 interchange in Houston at 5:30 pm on a Tuesday afternoon. You right to practice religion does not include child sacrifice.
Third: Just because a right is not listed in the Constitution does not mean it does not exist. Read the 9th amendment.
To summarize:
Our rights, granted by the Creator, are not absolute. When they infringe on the rights of others (like the unborn child), or even society as a whole, they can be legally and morally infringed upon. Your right to be secure in your person, paper, house, and things (i.e. the right to keep things private) does exist. It, however, is not absolute.
How is it possible to instill a sense of empathy in someone? I'm always amazed that bleeding heart liberals who pity death-row criminals don't think of abortion as killing a baby. Even the Protestant Mainline churces are pro-choice. I have friends and relatives who are pro-choice, and they think they have empathy. You just can't talk to these people.
The outward manifestations of lack of empathy can show up early in kids torturing animals. But empathy itself can't be measured and no group can decide what its quantity or quality should be. I know from my experience that I have a strong moral sense and, for example, always hated to see childhood friends torturing animals (frogs mostly). I can only speak with that degree of certainty about myself. But I can also point out in general that generations of people have grown up with less than full empathy as evidenced by abortion statistics clustered around societal and family groupings. Obviously there are other explanations for the clustering.
It's not easy, it can be extremely difficult, but ultimately all emotions and even much instinctive behavior is under our rational control. It is roughly summed up by practice makes perfect. If rational and empathetic persons are dealing with a rational but not empathetic person, I believe that over time that person will develop empathy by watching examples then by practicing and sharing the joy of kindness.
First of all, I'd argue that if abortion were illegal, it might have been 23 million moral decisions or less, since there is ample evidence that the availability of abortion has an impact on how careful people are about avoiding unwanted pregnancies. The number of abortions doubled between the first abortion was legalized and a few years later, even as the availability of birth control improved substantially.
It seems that the non-liberal approach is to define a physical line and not allow anyone to cross it. Maybe save 20-30 million human beings that way. The problem is the ones that aren't saved may be fully developed or even born as we saw recently in a trash can in D.C.
No law has 100% compliance. Would you accept the argument that we should legalize rape because we'll never stop rape with laws (no matter how draconian), most rapes aren't reported anyway, the line between rape and not-rape isn't entirely clear (at least in court), and the illegality of rape causes some men to murder their victims and those victims would be saved if rape were only legal? Sure, that ignores the fact that rape could skyrocket if it were legalized but it sounds like a pretty good argument if you pretent that the legality or illegality of an act has no impact on whether people do it or not, doesn't it?
I propose a liberal solution which is to instill a proper sense of empathy that would result in a deep respect for human life.
Yes, that sure is a liberal solution. So how do we reliably or magically instill this "proper sense of empthy" in everyone? Do we wave a magic wand or use the "liberal" solution of re-education camps and execution of those who won't go along for thought crimes?
And even if the magic wand works, what does a deep respect for human life mean? Why do you think it will produce a consistent morality?
Granted my empathy based approach will still result in the loss of millions of human lives, but they would primarily be of the one-celled or few-celled variety with no human shape or form, no human functions, no ability to feel pain, etc.
So you are willing to kill millions of strangers because they are meaningless to you. And I'm supposed to trust your sense of empathy to draw the right conclusions about morality?
And how many women do you think would die if abortion were made illegal? I would guess maybe a dozen more would die from illegal abortions, though you could reasonably claim in the 100-200 range if you use pre-Roe figures. So we're traiding 1 million lives for, at most, a couple hundred? And that ignores any impact that the legality of abortion has on unwanted pregnancies.
Absolutists will despise this approach and call it utilitarian. But it is emphatically not utilitarian, it is based on the deepest possible respect for human life which is the respect derived from the deep, ingrained emotion of empathy.
Sure it is. It's utilitarianism with lipstick on it built upon the assumption that an embryo isn't a person because, well, you just don't feel any empathy for it with your "proper sense of empathy". You really should read Dr. Greene's philosophy paper. He ultimately makes a very similar claim with a very similar basis -- he's critical of utilitarianism and then proposes utilitiarianism with lipstick as an alternative. But his demolition of utilitarianism is so good that it really is worth reading.
Is too! Is not! Sorry, it's getting late, can you post the link for the utilitarianism paper and I'll read it tomorrow. I haven't written a paper on empathy, but I hope you can reread my postings and understand how I think it can be developed.
What about a kid that goes hunting with his dad, shoots Bambi without feeling guilty about it, and helps mom and dad turn Bambi into sausage? Is he morally defective? What about the kid who burns fire ants with gasoline? Or the kid who uses worms as bait and catches fish on hooks? What about a kid that shoots deer for trophies rather than the meat? All empathically defective? Where is your line? Oh, right. You don't have lines. So how can you tell if someone's empathy is proper or not?
Please note that I'm not arguing that empathy cannot contribute to moral behavior. Of course it can. But it's a component of it, not the sum total of it. And there are people with little or no empathy, including people with autism, who manage to be moral people.
But empathy itself can't be measured and no group can decide what its quantity or quality should be.
Yet you talk about instilling a proper sense of empthy. What does that mean?
I know from my experience that I have a strong moral sense and, for example, always hated to see childhood friends torturing animals (frogs mostly).
Yet you are willing to allow abortionists to murder millions of children who are as old as my child was when I first saw her heartbeat. From my perspective, your moral sense and your empathy seem a bit defective. Have you ever seen a picture of an embryo implanted into a woman in a fertility clinic? They give you those during IVF, you know. It's the first picture in a lot of baby albums. Have you ever seen an ultrasound of a 7-week old fetus' heart beating?
And what did you do to stop those kids from torturing animals? Were you willing to tolerate it so long as you weren't an active participant rather than someone who passively knew it was going on?
I can only speak with that degree of certainty about myself.
Of course, yet you seem to assume that you can apply your thinking more universally to create a common morality.
But I can also point out in general that generations of people have grown up with less than full empathy as evidenced by abortion statistics clustered around societal and family groupings. Obviously there are other explanations for the clustering.
I'm not sure what you are referencing here. I would argue that most people can have their sense of empathy emphasized or desensitized by humanizing or dehumanizing, personalizing or abstracting the subject of their moral decision. There are Freepers here who have had abortions who regret those decisions, because they know things now that they didn't know then. The problem wasn't that they were morally or empathically deficient but that they were either ignorant or manipulated by others.
You can find all of Greene's papers here. His philosophical dissertation paper is here. Warning, it's 377 pages long, so I don't expect you to casually read the whole thing and respond to it. But his description of Utilitarianism that starts on page 331 of the PDF is hilariously true.
I haven't written a paper on empathy, but I hope you can reread my postings and understand how I think it can be developed.
Let me take a stab at what I think you are saying and then what I think is wrong with it. What you seem to be saying is that a proper sense of empathy will produce moral decisions. It doesn't make sense.
First, you need to define what a proper sense of empathy is. You have three problems there. You seem to assume that proper empathy is based on the appearance and mental capacity of the subject of the empathy. That's wrong because it's possible to feel empathy for a foam cube. You seem to assume that empathy revolves around empathy for pain alone. It's entirely possible to feel empathy for the tragedy a person who dies suddenly in their sleep or who is killed painlessly. You seem to assume that your own personal sense of empathy is universal and proper. I disagree. I have plenty of empathy for the unborn who die from abortion. I have a friend who was born despite an IUD inside of his mother. If she had the IUD removed, my friend would not exist. Every child who dies from abortion is like my friend or, to quote Neil Young (who wrote these lyrics about putting babies in dumpters), "There's one more kid that will never go to school; Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool."
Second, you need to explain why you think empathy, alone, will produce consistent moral decisions in everyone that has it. It doesn't. Because what I would have people to do me is not necessarily what you'd have people do to you. And empathy can lead to inaction. Liberals understand criminals and empathize with them the point where they not only can't bear to kill them but can barely bare to incarcerate them or have them feel uncomfortable at all. They want prisoners to be happy and forgiven because they empathize with them. Is that correct?
What I think you are really doing (and I might certainly be wrong) is that you are thinking, "I'm a pretty moral person, I'm a moral person because I feel empathy for others, and if everyone would just think like I'd do, we could all agree about moral issues." Well, I could say the same thing. If everyone agreed with me, they'd all agree that abortion is wrong and there would be no controversy. But that's not a viable moral philosophy. That's just wishful thinking. The truth is that other people don't think like I do. And there is no magic wand that's going to change that.
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Thanks for the ping!
The research into moral decision making using brain scans suggest this isn't entirely true. In fact, some researchers argue that we make the moral decision first and then justify it after the fact.
It is roughly summed up by practice makes perfect. If rational and empathetic persons are dealing with a rational but not empathetic person, I believe that over time that person will develop empathy by watching examples then by practicing and sharing the joy of kindness.
Do you have any evidence to support this belief? If this really happens, wouldn't we be living in Utopia by now?
Man, I like the way you said that. Bravo.
I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you. It has nothing to do with helplessness. It is about humanness. If that has to be explained, it cannot be understood.
On the first point I don't rely exclusively on human form and function for empathy, although that's the basis for most of the emotion. The other part is reason, which you seem to be implying that I can't have since I am using the emotion. I would maintain that reason tells me that the foam cube in your example was once a human and could again become a human. Of course that requires adding some sci-fi magic to my reason and your scenario (star trek) obviously allows that. I cannot have empathy for a foam cube in my closet in my house right now, but I can certainly have it in your scenario. I don't have to see the human form morph into the cube form although that would help. I can use whatever phyiscal evidence is available that the transformation occured along with eyewitness testimony, etc. That is no different from my reason in non-moral cases, it's just that in this case, there's an underlying emotion driving my moral choices.
On the second point, the strongest empathy comes from seeing another being in pain, but I can also empathize with joy and any other reasonably strong emotion. Empathy is simply my experience of that same emotion. Seeing someone die "painlessly" is going to give me empathy for the subject since I would not want to die "painlessly" either. My knowledge of the certainty of death has been quite painful at some points in my life.
On the third point I do not assume my sense of empathy is universal and proper. Like I said, it works for me and I have ample evidence that it works for many other people. I believe it can work for everyone although some will have to learn or relearn empathy.
I have empathy for every unborn human lost as well. Like I said at the beginning, I have more empathy for those who had human form and function and were extinguished with pain or in your words "painlessly" passed from a peaceful living state in the womb into death. The idea of death in the womb causes me great anguish, but it requires human form and function to make that anguish complete, a single cell is not going to produce a full measure of empathy and thus not a full measure of moral outrage against that death.
Second, you need to explain why you think empathy, alone, will produce consistent moral decisions in everyone that has it. It doesn't. Because what I would have people to do me is not necessarily what you'd have people do to you. And empathy can lead to inaction. Liberals understand criminals and empathize with them the point where they not only can't bear to kill them but can barely bare to incarcerate them or have them feel uncomfortable at all. They want prisoners to be happy and forgiven because they empathize with them. Is that correct?
Empathy alone does not produce consistent moral decisions, it also requires reason. Your rebuttal that your actions would not be the same as mine denies me that reason. Besides, there are many possible moral actions for each situation. It's true that empathy must be used or inaction will result. The example in your paper is good, if I do nothing or look away the train will kill five people. Empathy doesn't work if we close our eyes, ignore the abortion clinics, the culture of death, the train heading for those people. Liberals who can't punish criminals have no empathy for the victims. I don't look away from the silent scream and other evidence of immoral action just so I can pretend there was no moral wrong. That's what separates my liberalism from the mainstream liberalism you refer to.
What I think you are really doing (and I might certainly be wrong) is that you are thinking, "I'm a pretty moral person, I'm a moral person because I feel empathy for others, and if everyone would just think like I'd do, we could all agree about moral issues." Well, I could say the same thing. If everyone agreed with me, they'd all agree that abortion is wrong and there would be no controversy. But that's not a viable moral philosophy. That's just wishful thinking. The truth is that other people don't think like I do. And there is no magic wand that's going to change that.
Like any other liberal philosophy, my reliance on empathy (and reason) for morality can easily be labelled "wishful thinking". But to say it won't result in complete agreement on moral issues is not a valid argument against it since there are multiple moral outcomes in many cases.
Obviously everyone does not agree with your metaphysical definition of abortion as immoral. Some of the people who disagree with you have drawn their metaphysical line at birth. Then you and they are left to argue about lines and humanity. I don't have that problem and neither do millions like me. Our properly developed empathy underlies our moral reasoning on abortion. We see human potential extinguished and imagine our own human potential being extinguished. But more importantly we see human form and function that triggers a much stronger empathy for that person.
Your approach has two flaws, although I admit it has worked for vast numbers of people and cultures through the ages. The first flaw is that you ignore empathy in your moral decision. You admit it exists, you admit you have it, but you simply ignore it and rely on metaphysics thus always getting into (and potentially losing) metaphysical arguments. The second flaw is that your metaphysical approach, like all others, requires line drawing that is ultimately impossible. There is no line, you just "wishfully" will one into existence. Likewise in the camp of your enemies, there is no line of "birth" that they can draw which also dooms their approach. They also ignore empathy and suppress it to the point of pathology. Hence the damage done to women from abortion.
Lines, tipping points, whatever you want to call them, are not a strong basis for morality. Only empathy can be, has been and will be. All of the other metaphysical lines drawn throughout time have been derived from an empathetic reaction followed by reason. When lines are drawn codified into law by politics, there is an underlying emotion that the legislators are experiencing. When lines are used to enforce laws, there are underlying emotions that created those laws.
But the strength of a people to resist evil, to draw their own meaningful and moral lines comes from the strength of their own individual empathies. That empathy is what often lacks in criminals and by the time laws are enforced it is too late. Deterring people from committing abortion is going to require us to help them identify and emphasize with the humanity within them. Your job, with your beliefs, is to help women understand and empathize with the humanity within them back to the point of conception. It is a difficult job since the cell lacks human form and function, but you can, like I do, reason about human potential and humanity. But if you choose to ignore empathy and rely on solely metaphysical lines, you will lose the strongest force for good, the emotion that underlies goodness.
No clearly it is up to each individual to cultivate empathy in themselves and others. That certain groups don't do this and those same groups have high rates of abortion is evidence enough for me, bearing in mind that those same groups have above average awareness of your metaphysical definitions of morality.
I'm sorry, I inferred from your post 20 that you were valuing helplessness. Your definition of humanness relies on a metaphysical line that doesn't exist in reality. Since that's the case, it's no surprise you can't explain it.
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